Make the QIIME deploy work in OS X

[ElDeveloper]

I think it would be really really useful and that the script could be packed inside a "native-looking" installer like any other OSX package. I would be willing to help, I'm just not very familiar with the code-base and wouldn't know where to start. Would this even be possible?

[antgonza]

Who is the intended audience? If the users, I think we do not need this as
we have MacQIIME.

[ElDeveloper]

Developers seem like a more reasonable audience as I do not know of any developer using MacQIIME. Though it is true that MacQIIME already covers this audience.

[antgonza]

Shouldn't developers know how to install QIIME without a deploy or alter
the deploy accordingly?

[gregcaporaso]

I'm with @antgonza on this - I think MacQIIME is the answer for users, and devs can handle the install on their own. It would be nice to have this, but I think it's lower priority than many other features given that MacQIIME is awesome.

[ElDeveloper]

@antgonza I've tried altering the deploy a couple times in the past but with no luck. Perhaps I was missing something.

@gregcaporaso It truly is not high priority as per the points you guys mention, but I still think that with this infrastructure in place, this sounds like something very cool to have in place.

[pdmars]

In general I agree with @antgonza and @gregcaporaso, but I also think it would be cool if it could easily deploy on Macs. There are a number of issues that would need to be worked out first, and I also think the code should be refactored so if something like MacQIIME works fine, I'd stick with that for now given the amount of work I think it would take to add Mac support into qiime-deploy.

[lwparfrey]

Another perspective: One other audience that would like to use an OSX auto deploy are 'advanced users'. Full native qiime installation feels like a hazing initiation ritual for those of us that are not developers but work with developers and have development versions to keep up on the latest analyses. It would save a lot of time (possibly also for developers helping others on installations as well). But I understand that it is not a high priority.

[antgonza]

On the topic of how to become a dev, do you have a better idea of how to
teach the full installation process of QIIME? I know that the qiime-deploy
works in almost all Linux systems but from time to time the person
installing it needs to make changes to make it work, how will you gain that
experience? how will you learn install debugging?

[lwparfrey]

I don't really have good suggestions for teaching installation, for me it
has been mostly trial and error and then asking others for help. It would
probably be a good idea to ask new installers to make some notes on what to
try for installation. I suppose the biggest things I have found are reading
the README files, uninstalling/reinstalling if something fails, making sure
paths are set up correctly, following instructions on the Qiime.org
installation page.

On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 7:04 PM, Antonio Gonzalez
[email protected]:

On the topic of how to become a dev, do you have a better idea of how to
teach the full installation process of QIIME? I know that the qiime-deploy
works in almost all Linux systems but from time to time the person
installing it needs to make changes to make it work, how will you gain that
experience? how will you learn install debugging?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/17#issuecomment-14151939
.

Laura Wegener Parfrey
Postdoctoral Research Associate
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309

[antgonza]

Yes, that is a tough question. The only way I know how to teach someone to
debug install issues is to go to the install process themselves, which also
comes handy while being the QIIME master and in workshops.